Tuesday, November 20, 2012

RWFJ/AHA Collaboration Aims to Reverse Childhood Obesity

The Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have joined in an ambitious collaboration to reverse
the nation's childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. RWJF will provide AHA with $8
million in initial funding to create and manage an advocacy initiative focused
on changing local, state, and federal policies to help children and adolescents
be more active and eat healthier foods.

Under the new initiative, RWJF and AHA will focus on policy interventions to
advance 6 priorities that research shows are likely to have the greatest impact
on childhood obesity. AHA will develop the overarching strategy that connects
efforts across all 6 priorities and will fund efforts in underserved
communities for the last 3 of them:

improving the nutritional quality of snack foods
and beverages in schools